poppers

[Federico Boxaca]

I'm having trouble with foam and deer hair fly poppers while fishing Tararira. Tararira is a fish that inhabits fresh waters in Argentina and has the same habits as b****but has powerfull jaws plus sharp teeth. Can anyone help on models, patterns or brands that could survive fish with teeth?

[The Ole Man]

Frederico
Don't know of anything that will stand up to those fish. Did read article once where barrcuda fisherman was having same problem. His recommendation was to tie up a bunch of 2/0, 2 inch long, kinkshank saltwater popper hooks with the tail material only (feathers, bucktail, etc.)at the back of the hook. Then make a bunch of foam popper bodies and pierce them thru the center axis with an ice pick. When fished, slide a foam body on the hookshank and attach the hook to a leader that has a snap swivel on it. When the popper comes in all torn up, unsnap the swivel, slide off the torn up foam, slide a new foam body onto the hookshank and snap back on. Replaceable foam bodies and the snap eliminates the need to retie every time plus a large snap and a kink shank hook keeps the foam body from sliding off the hook and up the line. This 2 inch long hook is available from National Feather-Craft Co., PO Box 19904, St Louis, Mo, 63144, USA. Their item no. 1202 ($2.95 per dozen). They sell the foam cylinders as well. You can mark the bodies in patterns with waterproof marking pens. The co. claims that bluefish can't tear up their soft-foam bodies but don't know about that. Ask for their catalog. Hope this helps.

[The Ole Man]

Frederico
Received your email. Glad you are going to try this. I suppose I should come clean at this point and tell you -there was no article about the barracuda fisherman. I made this all up. Seemed like a workable solution to me and since you liked it and are going to try it I guess I can fess up -a little. Why a little? Because I've learned there is little in fishing that someone hasn't tried, is using or has tried and discarded. If you step up and say -hey here's my idea, you'll get 20 emails from folks that say -oh I've been doing that for years. The fact is here is the US of A, the solution would be to unclip the fly , dispose of it and put on a new one. We are very much into disposalable everything. This just seemed like a way to conserve some materials. Hope you will post back here and report on how it worked -or didn't work. I think people on this board would enjoy hearing more from you about your fishing there in Argentina. Location, what you fish for, do you run a camp or lodge? Tell us some details.
The Ole Man -^<>^-

[Federico Boxaca]

Dear Ole Man: Thanks for the tips and of course you are right I should answer through the board for everyone else to see. I will not have a chance to try your suggestion for a couple of weeks but will do it and let everybody know the results. Meanwhile I will enjoy tying some variants of poppers as per your indications. It has ocurred to me that maybe using the material that comes as insulation on the 1/2 inch thick coaxil cable (the one used on street instalation by the cable TV people) might work. Will let you know. Concerning your inquiry on the fishing lodge, the answer is yes, but not in Argentina, in Southern Chile. If you wish to get info on that let me know.

[Federico Boxaca]

Dear Ole man and fellow fly nuts: I have followed your idea about the poppers and here is what I did:

What I do for living is exporting wine from an Argentine winery to different countries around the world. Our customers in the UK are overly concerned about "corkiness" or foul cork odour in the wine. The solution we came up (as other wineries) is to use synthetic closures which being made of a special plastic foam (some special kind of polyethilene), impart no foul taste or odour to the wines. As you may imagine this "corks" are resilient and mechanically very resistent. So the idea strucked me immediately after your comment of the discardable plugs on the mithycal article on Barracuda fishing.
I managed to get half a dozen of the mentioned "plastic corks", made a hole in the middle lengthise, sculped them as poppers on a bench grinder (if someone is interested I can give detailed instructions), spray paint them with fluorescent enamel, covered them with clear epoxy coat and voilá!! Later dressed some 3/0 hooks with cristal flash and plastic hair adding a 6 inch steel leader. Yesterday I gave them a try on wild Tariras. The result was instant success. Not only the poppers where a great bait but the survived unscached to many bites that would have turned a regular popper to shreds. The reason: besides the natural resistance of the material plus the hard shield provided by the epoxy coating, the main thing is that when the fish bites the plug moves out of its mouth leaving only hte hook between the devastating jaws. I will now build some 20 or thirty different colored "heads" and with this and half a dozen hooks with feathers and steel leaders be ready to enjoy. Beware Tarariras!!!

[The Ole Man]

Frederico:
You have done it! Way to go. Last weekend, we had a fishing expo here in Atlanta. The program for that show had an article by world renowned flyfisherman Lefty Kreh. The article was on Barracuda fishing. The line in the article that caught my eye was when he said "The popping bug I use is made from Ethafoam so it's light, easy to cast and NEVER CATCHES A SECOND FISH". This means his popper is always torn up and requires replacement. Your same problem precisely. About two weeks ago, I had a dream that with my suggestions and your craftiness, a new popper for toothy fish was born. That you patented it and it was sold around the world. You and I collected royalties for the rest of our lives. Maybe I was just halucinating http://www.georgia-outdoors.com/ubbngto/smile.gif. Actually, you figured it out by allowing the body to slide up the line. I was inclined to retain it with a snap. None the less, it is done. I can see the headlines now:" NGTO-GLOBAL SOLUTIONS FOR THE FISHING WORLD". You don't happen to have a bottle or two of that wine sitting around unused do you?
Good fishing.
JACK